Tony Sun came back inside the cabin. He moved to the table, sat down and started counting his money. Seabury saw the 9mm Glock on the table next to him. He waited a moment and then eased the door shut. Tory untied Victoria. She left her sitting up in bed, imprisoned by her thoughts, then moved over and took the gun from Seabury’s hands. Jamming the gun up to the woman’s head, Tory grabbed down the front of her shirt and wrestled her to the door.
“Open it slowly,” Seabury said, standing close by.
The woman’s eyes widened with fear as she opened the door.
“Call him over,” Seabury whispered.
The woman cracked the door open and yelled across. Tony Sun turned around. His brown face shriveled in a mass of wrinkles and a harsh, annoying frown stitched his brow.
“This better be good,” he said, upset by the sudden intrusion.
He had a small canvas bag out on the table. He stuffed the rest of the money into it, zipped it shut and got up out of the chair. He stretched a moment, picked up the Glock and came across. The door was left cracked open. The barrel of the Glock came in first, followed by Tony Sun.
On the other side, Seabury waited until Tony and his weapon were parallel to the edge of the door. He used his left hand to jerk Tony and his weapon inside. He used his other hand as a wrecking ball. Seabury’s big fist crashed like a blacksmith’s hammer into the middle of Tony Sun’s face. The blow blew him back like he was caught in a rip-tide and being sucked out to sea.
Light on his feet for a big man, Seabury flew at him now, trapping Tony’s mouth and part of his nose and half of his face inside his huge paw. Seabury leaned in and twisted his shoulder. Twisted it hard to his right, then left, then back again in a switchback motion. He felt the vertebra snap and then shatter. Tony Sun collapsed dead on the floor with a broken neck.
Immediately, the brunette began to whimper. Low, uncontrollable sounds of fear and panic escaped from her lungs as she stood shaking all over. She glanced out to the front of the cabin, twisted back around and sobbed.
She grieved, she moaned, she lamented. She let out her frustration in a wild, sustained display of emotion and when she was finished, she spun back around and attacked Tory Kwan.
She sprang at her in a moment of fury, fingers curled into a stiff claw that raked down the side of Tory’s face. Beneath the skin, dark ugly scratches started to bleed, and in a wild instant the woman went for the gun in Tory’s hand. She squirmed and twisted trying to wrestle it free.
Seabury rushed in and tried to separate them. He seized the brunette by the shoulder, but she spun to the side out of his grasp. She might be thin and wiry, but she was very strong for her size. She drove a shoulder into Tory’s chest and knocked her back against the wall and tried to head-butt her.
Tory held onto the gun. She twisted her shoulders and yanked at the gun to keep the woman from seizing it.
At the right moment, Tory hooked her right foot behind the woman’s left leg, lunged forward, driving a shoulder into her and they crashed to the floor, struggling in a cat-fight until the gun discharged rocking the room with the sound of a loud explosion. Windows shook. Walls rattled. Seabury’s ears rang like he was caught in the midst of a bomb blast.
He saw the woman stand up first. She turned around and looked at him. A helpless fear dimmed the irises of both eyes before the weary, finite expression of mortality crossed her face.
Seabury stared down and saw the gaping hole in the middle of her chest. As she reeled back, he stood to the side and she collapsed on her back dead on the floor. Her eyes stayed open, staring up at the ceiling.
Tory rose slowly, drained and exhausted, gasping hard for air. She looked down at the woman, then turned around and stared back up at Seabury. As shock set in, she started to shake.
“You okay?” he said.
A puff of air pushed out of Tory’s lungs in a soft, dry whisper. “Okay,” she said.
Seabury braced her with his arm and kept her from falling over. He led her into the living room and sat her down on a Club chair.
“You’re no tour guide,” he said.
“No…a cop.”
“I thought so…from the take-down move.”
She managed a faint smile.
“We better go,” he said, glancing toward the back bedroom to where Victoria Hong sat up in bed and stared out listlessly into space. He went back and helped her out of the house and gently into the back seat of the sedan parked beside the cabin, and shut the door behind her. He came around to the driver’s side, got inside and fired up the engine. Tory sat in the front seat next to him. She stared vacantly out the window as the car sped down the dirt road through the forest.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Dawn broke over the mountains as birdsong filled the day.
Pragmatically, Seabury mulled over the events that had taken place over the last few days. He had to see them clearly before moving forward. Kanoa Lee had hijacked the bus in central Laos. He had killed the passengers and brought down government buildings in Vientiane as a protest against the LPR who had persecuted the Hmong for decades. Lee was Mister Cheeb’s brother-in-law. He’d caught a fleeting glimpse of him that night in the boat shack before he vanished into the night.
Hyde Greer was another issue. Greer needed a scheme. He knew Joe Greer had died in a plane crash four decades earlier. Seabury figured Greer had checked through military archives and came up with a name. Howard Hatcher. Head of the US Tactical Command in Saigon during the Vietnam War. Hatcher had called off the search party that ended his father’s life. Why he’d waited until now to kill him wasn’t clear, but it probably had something to do with the money he felt he needed to carry out his plan to kill Hatcher and flee the country. Victoria Hong, on the other hand, was merely a conduit. Her ransom provided money. A million dollars would go a long way in the seclusion of a remote third-world country on the other side of the world where Greer could change his identity and start over a new life.
Linking the events into a time-line, Seabury now faced a final mission. He had to stop a murder from taking place, and he had to hurry.
A while later, he used a pay phone on the edge of town and placed a collect call to Robert Hong telling him his daughter was alive. He heard the elderly man cry out in joy on the other end.
“Robert. Listen, please. I need your help,” Seabury spoke quickly into the phone. “Here’s what I want you to do.”
Robert Hong was a billionaire. His name alone commanded attention. With a single phone call, Seabury knew that Hong could arrange to fly his Lear jet non-stop from Bangkok to Lao Prabang. He could travel through foreign air-space, skirting bureaucratic roadblocks and regulations, side-stepping protocol and all the other technicalities involved entering a foreign country by airplane—just on the strength of his name alone.
Less than five hours after Seabury had made the call, Robert Hong’s private Lear touched down at the airport in Lao Prabang.
“This is the happiest day of my life.” Hong beamed with joy inside the terminal. There were hugs and kisses for Sam Seabury and Tory Kwan, for his daughter Victoria who stood by his side, passionless and unresponsive. People moving by noticed the bruises on her face, and gave her strange, uncomfortable looks.
“I’m sorry to have to break away,” Seabury said to Robert Hong, “but we need to move quickly.” He kept the elderly man informed of his business in Vientiane, “We need to get to the U.S. Embassy. There’s no time to waste.”
They crossed the tarmac toward the Lear and scurried up the ladder into the plane. The doors folded shut behind them. A gust of moist air shot back into the cabin as they moved up the aisle into the interior of the plane and sat down. Up front in the cockpit, the pilot radioed for clearance from the air control tower. A few minutes later, he taxied down the runway and less than ten minutes after that, the plane had climbed to thirty thousand feet for the thirty minute flight back to Vientiane.
The plane soared over green valleys, mountainous jungle t
errain and patches of shimmering water far below. Up front, Seabury sat in the seat next to Tory, Hong and his daughter, silent and unresponsive, sat in the seats directly behind them.
Clouds shot by outside the window. The jet engine whined back into the cabin as the Lear shot across the blue sky. Seabury sat back as a layer of apprehension settled over him. He was afraid they’d arrive back in Vientiane too late to stop a murder. The clock was ticking again, ticking away. They had to hurry.
* * * *
In Vientiane, at a distance of three hundred and forty-four kilometers south of the airport in Lao Prabang, Hyde Greer stood in the shadows of the underground garage. Four floors above, in the suite of offices inside the Lao Holding State Enterprise Building, Howard Hatcher attended a final meeting with the Joint Bank Development committee.
A trio of paid Lao informants at the U.S. Embassy had provided Greer with Hatcher’s itinerary. It wasn’t difficult tracking him to this location. In fact, on this particular day, it was quite easy. A limo waited in a far corner of the garage. The Lao driver, on a careless smoke break, had fallen asleep in the front seat and left the front and back doors of the vehicle unlocked. The driver’s back was turned and he struggled only briefly as Greer used the piano wire to strangle him. He dragged the body back into a dark corner and flung it into the dumpster.
The chauffeur’s uniform fit snuggly through the arms and shoulders, but Greer hardly noticed the discomfort as exhilarated as he was by the success of the kill. When Hatcher and his deputy returned to the limo after the meeting, it wasn’t difficult to explain to Hatcher about the regular limo driver’s sudden illness or how he’d been called in on short notice to serve as a substitute driver. Greer showed them a set of fake credentials and Hatcher and his deputy nodded in approval.
The U.S. Embassy was located on 19 Rue Bartholonie and Greer headed back in that direction. On the boulevard, he reduced speed and pulled in quickly behind a pocket of motorcycles, letting the engine of the limo whine down to a kittenish purr under the massive hood. He glanced in the rearview mirror through the glass partition at the two men sitting in the back seat. His face grew cold and sullen. The muscles around his mouth pulled tight into a hard, menacing snarl.
Howard Hatcher sat chatting with his deputy as he stared out the window at sparse crowds standing out of the sun under the shade of tall trees lining the boulevard. Buses and motorcycles whizzed by followed by light delivery trucks with wide black tires.
A dark resentment filled Greer now as he stared back at Hatcher. Hatcher wasn’t old enough to be called ancient and not young enough to be called middle-aged either. He’d fit a comfortable niche in his political life where men in their mid-to-late sixties were considered fashionable and sought to fill key government positions because of their political connections, background and experience. Far from being old and unproductive, he wasn’t ready to be put out to pasture.
“You look tired, Mister Ambassador,” the deputy said.
“Maybe a little, Bill,” Hatcher said. “Why? Does it show?”
“I think you’ll enjoy your nap this afternoon before the evening’s festivities start,” Bill Wheatley said, always the diplomat, always deferential when it came to dealing with his boss.
Hatcher was a thin, grizzled man with a goatee going gray and a shock of white coiffed hair. He had steel blue eyes and the cold calculating look of a master schemer. Over the years he’d developed a politician’s quick, disingenuous smile. It seemed to soften the hard, outer edges of his exterior, which others saw as an aggressive personality.
Greer glanced ahead at the road and then back. Hatcher sat back dressed in a thousand-dollar black Armani suit, a white shirt and flashy red tie. His trim waist rippled with firm abs chiseled from a daily routine of multiple, fifty set crunches done in the privacy of the gym back at the embassy. Greer decided that he didn’t just loathe this man, he truly hated him. A passion boiled inside his blood.
Now the limo swung wide around a delivery truck spewing thick, dark smoke out a rusted exhaust pipe. At a traffic light the truck stopped in front of them. Hatcher hit the intercom switch and shouted up at the driver.
“After the light, get around him. I’m tired of eating monoxide fumes.”
Greer nodded as the light changed and he got the Chrysler up to speed. He hit the gas and powered around the truck. In the side mirror, he saw the truck disappear behind them into a blue mist of vapor and smoke. Greer noticed the intercom was still on. Hatcher had forgotten to switch it off. He listened to the two men talking in the back seat, with a stream of hatred swelling deep in his heart.
“I’m happy for you, Mister Ambassador,” said Bill Wheatley turning back to his boss. “I know what the appointment means to you.”
Wheatley’s small, bird-like body sagged with the soft, marshmallow build of a computer nerd. Small, green, close-set eyes stared at Hatcher through a pair of wire-framed glasses. A thatch of blond hair capped the top of his small, pointed head. At age thirty-five, Wheatley had spent the last twelve years working his way up the diplomatic career ladder. Now, unable to control his delight, he gushed out loud. “The appointment, it’s just…utterly fantastic.”
Hatcher smiled. “Yes, it is, Bill. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t. Another week and we’re off to Washington.” He paused and added, “Replacing Rita Wharton Renner won’t be easy. Those are big shoes to fill in the State Department. But I’m up to the task.”
“I have no doubt,” Wheatley said, polishing the apple in a tone of subservience, “Thank you also for the confidence you’ve placed in me.”
“It’s a good career move,” Hatcher said. “I become Secretary of State and you move in as my deputy.”
“I do appreciate it, Mister Ambassador.”
“I know you do, Bill.”
Hatcher turned a smug brow out the window. He stared at plain, nameless, insignificant people walking along the boulevard, staring back at him. He thought about his time spent here in Laos, six significant years in the service of his country. Now he was climbing the diplomatic career ladder again, this time into a position of immense power and political importance, working within the massively large chessboard of American foreign policy. Was he ready for such a move? Did a cat have whiskers? The thought buoyed him now as he turned back from the window, staring past Wheatley, happy for a respite from the deputy’s fawning attentiveness. He reached into a side compartment and opened a bottle of Scotch whiskey and poured himself a drink. It was his second of the day, at precisely the same time 4:00 p.m. that he’d had his second drink yesterday, following his meeting at the American Chamber of Commerce.
It was true. The Ambassador felt tired. He looked forward to a cool bath and a nap, before the evening’s festivities began. A banquet, held in his honor at the embassy, started tonight at eight o’clock. Politicians, diplomats, business leaders and high-ranking military brass and their wives would be on hand to congratulate him on his recent appointment to Secretary of State, replacing Rita Renner.
Greer swung the limo into the outer lane and picked up speed. Two sedans carrying special agents swung into the same lane behind them and stayed three car lengths back. Greer eased off the gas pedal, not wanting to draw attention and drove at a safe speed through town out to Rue 19 Bathholonie. At the embassy he stopped the limo in front of a large wrought-ironed gate and waited, hunkered down in the front seat, with the visor of his cap turned down low over his eyes.
The embassy was not impressive. Not modern or elegant—like a glass towered skyscraper shooting straight up off a busy street—but grim and secure, with a fifteen foot high stone wall surrounding it. Heavily secured by U.S. Marines and a bevy of jack-booted security guards.
At last the guard at the gate glanced in through the window, snapped a quick salute and waved them through.
Hyde Greer drove Hatcher and his lackey around to the front of the embassy and let them out. In the car he watched as two Marines snapped salutes at the front door as Hatch
er and Wheatley entered the building.
Greer marveled at how easy it was getting inside. In a few hours he’d kill Howard Hatcher and send shock waves throughout the Western World. He’d avenge his father’s death and put the memory of Joe Greer to rest forever. It was fate. His destiny.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Pulling up in front of a spacious garage across the embassy compound, Hyde Greer saw the large metal door rattle open on its hinges. Inside three laborers with brushes, sponges, and buckets of hot soapy water attacked dirt and deposits of grime that collected on the fleet of embassy vehicles. Chattering and laughing, they worked soapsuds over the surfaces of the vehicles in a flurry of brisk, circular scrubbing motions.
“Where’s Malo?” The laborer came over and asked Greer. A stocky built Lao, the guy stared at Greer with big brown eyes set inside a plump, bovine face. His eye lids narrowed and filled with suspicion as he looked at Greer.
“Went home sick,” Greer said in fluent Laotian. “They called me in…short notice.”
That seemed to satisfy the laborer and he went back and rejoined his group. Greer drove the limo into the garage. He parked in a space to the left of where the two agents had parked their cars. Sitting low in the front seat of the limo, Greer watched the agents exit the garage and move off into the shadows of a tree-lined path surrounding the embassy. A few minutes later, he sauntered out of the garage unobserved and walked back quickly toward the vacant storage area further back from the garage his embassy informants had told him was a safe place to hide. Inside, he changed quickly out of the chauffeur’s uniform into a pair of slacks and suit coat.
He slipped on a press pass under the name Allen George, a journalist covering the gala event for the Daily Chronicle in Singapore. A friend in Vientiane had recommended a scrawny bald Cambodian living in the country to do the forgery. Of course, a rush job would cost extra. Greer told the guy in Vientiane to tell his friend to get the job done. It took less than four hours. He had the money now. Whatever he wanted could be had by a snap of his fingers. His immediate plan was to kill Hatcher and escape the country with his girlfriend Lea for the remote seclusion of the island of Pine Cay in the Bahamas.
Ransom Drop Page 18
